Page 100 of Inflamed By an Incubus

“I don’t normally take orders, but I’ve been working on it. There’s a little spell just doing its thing inside him.” She waggled a finger up and down Fenix.

He grimaced and looked at himself, shock mingled with disgust rolling across his handsome features. “There is?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “I’ve undone most of it, but some of the magic he used to forge the spell is old… ancient. I’m having trouble with it. Mother earth, he’s powerful though. This is a top-notch spell. I thought it was silly and low-level before, but it’s intricate.”

That didn’t sound good.

“But you can undo it?” Evelyn gazed at Fenix again, her worry building to new heights as she realised Rosalind had never told her the other reason why Archer had chosen a draining spell.

As his swirling cerulean and gold eyes shifted to her, growing even more hooded, she knew why.

It was continuing to weaken him, stealing his strength.

Making him need to feed.

Archer had done it to force him to face a choice.

She drew down a deep breath and pushed her hurt aside, focusing on Fenix’s wellbeing instead—on how he felt. Fear shone in his gold and cerulean eyes. Fear and hunger. He was afraid of what was happening to him.

Because he knew his options were slim.

He needed to feed, and soon, otherwise he would end up losing control of himself. She had read about incubi. Archangel had starved several of his breed to record the effect it had on them. All of them had lost their minds and savagely attacked the first female presented to them, forcing them against their will to surrender to them, brutal in their pursuit of pleasure.

More than one of them had killed their host.

Fenix was scared of turning into a monster who would do that, but he was also afraid of feeding now before it was too late, because he only had two choices—find a female host and betray his mate by sleeping with her or turn to his mate—to Evelyn—for help and risk the curse triggering.

He still believed it could take her from him.

Only she knew something Fenix didn’t.

When he drew away from her, a pained edge to his gaze as he cast it down at his knees, the need to reassure him and make him see that everything was going to be all right became too powerful to deny.

“I’m already in love with you,” she blurted.

Everyone turned surprised looks on her.

She held Fenix’s gaze, shutting them all out as the need to comfort him and steal his pain away coursed through her. When she reached for his hand, he withdrew it slightly, and then relented, shifting it back to within her reach. His eyes searched hers, a trace of disbelief in them that she could understand.

“Archer said it himself. Confirmed my theory for me. I fell for you before I died in the Fifth Realm, and heading into the dark place where Archer went to bring me back… my death… messed with my memories a little and made me forget… but I know now. I know I was already in love with you… I am in love with you.” She stroked her fingers over the back of his hand and willed him to believe her, and she lifted her other hand to her chest and pressed her palm to it over her heart. “I’m not just saying this, Fenix. Remember what Archer said—the curse didn’t trigger because he brought me back. Meaning… the curse was active and he knew it. Only I don’t think he knows it begins when I fall for you. I think he believes that when I die, I’m cursed to forget everything, and that’s all… that it’s always active inside me. What if it always is?”

She was rambling now, but something else had just dawned on her.

She stared into Fenix’s eyes.

“You’re always in love with me,” she whispered and he nodded, didn’t hesitate for even a second, and his eyes warmed with affection, stirring that same warmth in her heart. “What if I’m always in love with you? I just forget I am… but the feeling is always there. The curse is always active.”

A bleak look entered his eyes as his dark eyebrows furrowed as he croaked, “But if that’s the case… all the times I stayed away…”

They would have meant nothing.

She would have died regardless, because she still loved him. She just wasn’t aware of it until she saw him and those feelings surged to the surface again, making her feel as if she was falling for him when she had already fallen.

A long time ago judging by what he had told her.

Her heart went out to him as he stared at her and she felt a sliver of what he was, was sure it was his feelings treading a dark and sombre path, one that felt like hopelessness to her. It struck her that he thought it was over again, or over forever—that he was constantly going to lose her because of the curse and there was nothing he could do about it.

She squeezed his hand and held his gaze. “Archer interfered with the curse. I’m not dead. I might never die because of the curse now. As long as we’re careful, we have a chance to break this and free ourselves from it.”

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